The new cardinal sin

John Steinbeck's shockingly realistic social commentary, The Grapes of Wrath, set during the Great Depression, rails against its villains of sloth and greed which threw millions of honest, industrious Americans out of work, into poverty and into bread lines. Now, exactly 70 years after its publication, it might perhaps ring its poignant bell loudest in this recession.

One of the most tragic scenes in the book full of gloomy depravity is when crowds of hungry families gather around a river as greedy, capitalistic farmers discard their orange crop, soaked in gasoline, to re-inflate prices. As a nation starves, they let such precious resources slip through their grasp, declaring the message of the scene: in times of hardship, waste becomes a cardinal sin.

So to explain why that's relevant: we at Century 21, as the nation's largest relocation company, enjoy a lot of corporate support that we seem to take for granted. Our industry rejoiced in a boom where "volume can cure a multitude of sins" (Michael Schaller) but as of these hard times, a new vigilance must be resumed.

In addition to the delicious apples that always seem to be floating around our office, our 21online service offers many useful tools that a majority of our agents seem to not be taking advantage of.

Contact Management: the site offers a customizable organizer for all your contacts, clients and others (like Outlook, but much more comprehensive). You can input thousands of clients and set up, within minutes, a system to automatically send birthday, Christmas, and anniversary greetings, or little flags to remind you to make a quick call to keep in touch. As callous as it may seem, it cuts down maintaining personal relationships with your clients to a science.

Why that's useful? National statistics show that after finishing a transaction, 70% of buyers would probably or definitely use their real estate agent again. Sounds great, but few of them actually do. The only thing that can happen is they lose touch and by the time they want to buy or sell again (an average of four years), the agent that provided them such excellent service is now long gone into the abyss of memory. With 21online's contact management system, you easily stay in contact with satisfied clients so that they return again and again and even have the presence of mind to recommend you to others. As Century 21 Adobe owner, Michael Schaller puts it, "Most agents stay in their first year of business every year." With the right tools, you don't have to.

Customizable presentations: Everyone knows how hard it can be sometimes to win over a client. Century21's corporate support artillery releases dozens of customizable presentations (PowerPoint or paper) that can boast everything about you from your reliability and experience, your entrenchment in our national network of over 140,000 professionals, to the numerous pitfalls of selling home yourself (misguided For Sale ByOwner's). All the tools and presentations anyone would ever need to win over a client are accessible on 21online with the click of a mouse.

So as real estate as an industry recovers, many more opportunities will become available to those who care to optimize their available resources and stop soaking their oranges in gasoline.